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In-Depth Analysis of why Arsenal can be Champions

With the pre-season off to a flying start Arsenal already look ready to start their Premier League campaign and mount a serious offense on the title.

After a fantastic end to last season, the signing of a highly experienced goalkeeper, pre-season form, and the possibility of a big name striker, fans will be salivating at the prospect of things to come. Here’s a look at why Arsenal can win the Premier League this season and we can get the big bus again!End of last season
The Gunners ended last season on a high, with a third place finish in the league, and an FA Cup win for the second year running. Their form towards the end of the season was blistering and they looked like a team to be feared. Last year’s new signing Alexis Sanchez could possibly be the most promising player that Arsenal have acquired in years. He stormed into the Premier League and racked up 16 goals and 8 assists in 36 appearances for the Gunners, quickly becoming one of the best midfielders in the league. Already rivaling the likes of Eden Hazard and David Silva in his first season in England, Sanchez looks destined for big things and will be a key part of Arsenal’s forthcoming onslaught on the title. Though he is set to miss at least the first week of the new season, when he comes back he will have opposition defences quaking in their boots.

Petr Cech
Last season Arsene Wenger couldn’t seem to choose between David Ospina and Wojciech Szczesny as to who should be in goal. And neither really looked like title winning goalkeepers. Wenger addressed this issue early in the transfer window with the signing of Petr Cech and it’s looking like the highly experienced Czech international will be the number one choice between the sticks from now on. Cech has already won the league, the domestic cups and the Champions League and will be an excellent addition, commanding the team from the back. John Terry has already said that this was a superb signing for Arsenal and he could help them win the league.

Theo Walcott
Although he missed most of last season through injury, Walcott made a few appearances towards the end and reminded everyone just how deadly a strike force he can be. He only played a total of 447 minutes in the 2014/15 campaign but still managed 5 goals and 1 assist. For the past two years Walcott missed pre-season though injury, but this year he is with the club and playing regularly. Everything seems ok injury-wise as well and he looks fit again, touch wood. The last time he was fit throughout a full season was during the 2012/13 campaign. He was on fire then, and racked up 14 goals and 13 assists in the league. If the England international can hit this kind of form again, Arsenal will be a serious threat. He has already scored in pre-season and has said in interviews that he plans to target 20 goals this season. Arsenal fans will be hoping he will be true to his word.

Great Cohesion
Not only has Walcott been showing flashes of the brilliance that he possesses (see above) during pre-season, a few other players have been making their cases for regular starting positions known. Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain has looked threatening, showing his versatility and ability to play in various positions, along with producing a serious goal threat. Jack Wilshere looks fully fit again and could be a very important playmaker in the centre of the park. Now that Mathieu Debuchy has also returned from injury, he will have to fight with Hector Bellerin for the position at right-back, as Bellerin proved that he was more than up to the task in the latter stages of last season. All this competition for places will help the players keep sharp, and inspire them to look to improve their game even more.

Cech stated in an interview recently that Arsenal show great team spirit, and work really well together. This cohesion has shown through their pre-season matches so far and it puts them at a distinct advantage over teams who are still busy in the transfer market. Teams such as Manchester United have made some excellent looking signings, but they need time to gel together as a team. Arsenal are already way ahead in this regard.

The way things are looking, the Gunners seem almost ready to be serious title contenders. There may yet be a few final pieces to the puzzle though. Wenger has been known to pull out some surprise signings from the hat over recent years, and pundits are speculating that a new striker could be on the cards.

Possibility of new striker
On his day there is no doubt that Olivier Giroud is a great striker, the problem is he just hasn’t been consistent enough for the Gunners. This is why many are saying that the signing of a new out and out goal-scorer could be the final piece of the puzzle, and the key to Arsenal lifting the Premier League title again after all this time. Rumour has it that Rafa Benitez may be looking for a new striker at Real Madrid to stamp his own image on the team, which could mean that Karim Benzema will be on the move. Speculation over this happening is so great, that at the time of writing Betfair have the French striker at 6/4 to join the Gunners during this transfer window. Fans will be hoping that this is a deal that comes to fruition, as Benzema is a highly experienced forward who has won a plethora of trophies.

Benzema has scored 87 league goals in 188 appearances for Real Madrid, but it is not just his eye for goal, but his movement in the box (see above) that leaves opposition defences in disarray. There is no doubt that this would be a great capture for Wenger.

With only a few weeks left until the new season begins, these are very exciting times for Arsenal.

Dreams are free .
Definitely not with what we’ve got .
An injury to any of
Sanchez
Oziil
Cazorla
Kolcieny
Coquelin
Will cost us points .
Also we lack the equivalent of Willian of Chelsea or yaya toure ,players who are not only work horses , but can score you 10 – 15 goals a season .
Have you ever seen Willian being knocked off the ball. That guy regularly moves the ball from his half and moves with within sights of the opponent’s 6 yard box and still deliver a nice cross or pass.

I agree that Benzema’s an upgrade on both for the ST role. But both Giroud and Benzema have great characteristics for counter-attacking sides as they link moves at speed and the threats come from the flanks.
I’d love to see Benzema at Arsenal, but a front three of Sanchez, Giroud, and Theo with Cazorla and Ozil working their midfield magic I feel would be both incredibly versatile and potent.
Still interested to see whether we buy a versatile marquee attacker or an out and out striker.

I don’t think another striker is coming in – but in the weird world of football there are reasons why you would extend his contract if a big name was coming in. If you want to keep him as second choice striker it may be a good idea to show him you care and keep him on board. Afterall KB coming in and Giroud nobbing off will put us back to square one in terms of depth/options – albeit with a better 1st choice striker. Will also protect AFC position if someone comes in to take him away – not that would make many unhappy on here.

OT: Do any of you know what kind of trainings are given to strikers? I’m just curious about what welbeck does in training. Dont get me wrong, I do think he’s a good player but You would think that he would improve his finishing by now. Maybe its personal, some players want to be the best and some just are lazy.
Last season sanchez was training by himself after trainings have ended to improve himself. Ozil hit the jym too when he was injured. CR7, messi all try to improve to stay on top.

It’s confidence.. You can put the ball in the back of the net 100x in training but when it’s in a game situation there’s obviously the potential to over-think it. A bit of a drought and then the pressure builds game to game.
I think the criticism’s of Welbeck’s first season have been a tad harsh. He’s proved that he has the speed and physique to be deadly, and has the intelligence in his movements to get in scoring positions regularly. If he improves his first-touch and finishing we could see his goal return increase substantially.

I doubt it was because of the 1st season syndrome because he was the same when he was with man utd. Maybe he just isn’t technical enough.
The day we see Welbeck score a rabona chip like Jonathan calleri….

I think for Welbeck its too soon to judge him, I think he is a good player – comfortable on the ball, can dribble past defenders here and there. his lack of goals isnt caused by him being poor and missing sitters, infact if you look at his goals you’d notice how good and well-taken they were. His lack of goals corresponds to the fact that upon his arrival, we lost so many creative players (ozil, walcott, gnabry, ox, wilshere, etc), that makes it difficult for any striker to thrive. If you look at Man U last season, lack of creativity from midfielders is the very same reason why their strikers were’nt lethal.

Now that everyone is fit, we are in a position to see how good or poor he really is when playing as a CF.

Exactly @josh you can see he’s getting himself into good goal scoring positions which is very positive. his physical attributes are off the chart and you can see he understands the game really well. I have high hopes for Danny I think he can turn into a world class ST

I am not in for this huge money benzema move but i’ll be over joyous to see chicarito in arsenal shirt.he is still very hungry for success and very dangerous in the box,he will score more than 20goals in a season while ozil will have the highest assist.Real madrid took him on loan shows he is very good if not excellent yet.Meanwhile OG is just good not very good.

I can see us playing 4-4-2 at some point again.
A midfield line that is defensivly biased with say Coquelin and Samper, (hope we sign him) and say Walcott and/or Benzema/Giroud up front, maybe even both the big guys.
Go long!! Every team needs to try different tactics sometimes and as we saw last year teams started to set up extremely defensivly towards us. Having two big front to hit would be a nice option 🙂

The only way I see Arsenal winning the title with this current team is if there are no long term injuries. Otherwise we will be looking at 2nd or 3rd again. The quality is in the team but we need to buy quality to keep everyone fresh and still maintain our level of performance.

I think some of the criticisms need to be put in a context. Welbeck is still a young man of 23 years and has his best years ahead of him. Thus it is not fair to simply ignore and write him off as if he is trash. Secondly, he has been bedevilled by injuries since he joined Arsenal but if his England exploits are anything to go by I believe Wellbeck will be a good player for Arsenal in the near future.
On the issue of Olivier Giroud, I can only say that this is again a case of the same irrational fans who forced out Adebayor, Bendtner, Eboue, Arshavin and Gervinho while giving red carpet treatment to traitors like Van Persie who was permanently injured and Nasri who only came to Arsenal to use it as a springboard to fulfill his individual ambitions. The same fans have at certain times attempted to force out Ramsey, Wilshere and even Mertesacker! This is a group of individuals who are so rash, intolerant, vindictive, irrational and extremely impatient. They are fond of citing the money they pay in form of tickets and yet they are not the only ones who pay nor do they pay the highest amount! This group specialises in castegorising players into ‘darlings’ and ‘rejects’ and coining unsavoury names for the players they hate such as ‘forehead’ for Gervinho, ‘Lord’ Bendtner etc. They have almost ruined the careers of young players like Denilson, Bendtner, Djourou, Eboue, Senderos etc. However Giroud is a different type of player and they have failed to break him down as they also failed with Ramsey and Wilshere. If this negative clique can be reigned in, it will be good for team cohesion. There is absolutely nothing wrong with Giroud. Infact he is a core link in our team and we play much better when he is around as was evidenced by the poor run of games we suffered during the three months he was injured.